MRI Evaluation of White Matter Recovery After Brain Injury

We discuss the use of MRI in detecting and staging white matter reorganization after brain injury with and without neurorestorative treatment. Based on variations of diffusion tensor MRI (DTI) methodology, we demonstrate that MRI can detect white matter remodeling after brain injury. In addition, we demonstrate that Q-space DTI can detect early stage axonal remodeling, which involves randomly oriented crossing axons. With the information obtained from conventional and Q-space DTI, it is possible to stage white matter remodeling after brain injury. (Stroke. 2010;41[suppl 1]:S112-S113.)